Shattered Like Porcelain
by Zgirl714
Summary: Dr. Claire Saunders shattered like porcelain and must pick up the pieces. finale spoilers


Title: Shattered Like Porcelain  
Author: Sami  
Rating: PG-13  
Characters: Claire, Ivy, Victor  
Summary: Dr. Claire Saunders shattered like porcelain and must pick up the pieces.  
Spoiler: Spoilers for the Finale  
Notes: Written for the doll_ficathon for the prompt, fixing a broken doll. All rights reserved to Boston Diva, Mutant Enemy, and Fox.

* * *

Claire Saunders rested her chin on her hands as she stared at the manila folder covering her keyboard. A snippet of last night's dreams floated through her mind.

_A doll, eyes wide and black, plummeted from infinite darkness towards a forest of tiny and twisted Bonsai trees growing in a field of round river rocks. The wind ruffled its blue petticoats and black lab coat. It shattered on impact. Thunder cracked before rain drops fell, hot and fat._

A chill lingered up her arms after she awoke and she had only shaken off her ill ease when Ivy stopped by with the folder. Victor was being prepped for his first imprinting since Alpha...

She shot up out of her seat and walked to her sliding office door. Claire looked through the rectangular windows, trying to school her features into their usual reserve. The soothing décor, muted lighting, and warm hues of the atrium did little to calm her.

Ivy and Victor passed the Yoga area, walking towards her, in the front of a group of Actives going to lunch. His jagged cuts were still an angry red. Tango and Sierra waved to them from the exercise group as they moved into mountain pose.

She touched the rounded bumps of scar tissue on her face absently before pulling her hand down. Alpha's insane smile came to mind. They were supposed to have protected them, she thought, wasn't that part of the contract that they had signed? Frowning, she turned away to pick up Victor's test results from her desk. She wondered who had performed cat scans and blood tests on her after the massacre. Someone had to have done it since the first Dr. Saunders had been killed the same day she was attacked. She imagined herself as Dr. Saunders comforting her shaken and scarred Dollself. She took a deep breath to push away her morbid train of thought before they slid open the door.

"Hello, Dr. Saunders," Victor said, blandly cheerful, waving to her.

She faced them with an artificial smile that hung tightly on her face as she pressed the results to her chest. "Good afternoon."

"Sorry, Claire," Ivy said, brushing her short braid back over her shoulder. She was wearing an A-line black skirt and deep purple blouse under her white coat. "Topher insists that I need to get a second opinion on the pre- and post-imprint scans even though I'm fully capable of both, but..." Ivy rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I've been getting random text messages from him constantly since he left for that convention this morning."

"Topher is Topher. I understand." Claire focused on Ivy in order to not to look at Victor and his scars that were so different, but so painfully familiar. Alpha's twisted idea of artistry on his face reflected her own. His open and trusting gaze was like the most bitter of mirrors. "I didn't find any abnormalities in the first scan so the imprinting should go smoothly."

Ivy looked down. "I also need to ask you to-" She sighed, grimacing as if continuing was a blow to her pride. "-check out the brain mapping during the imprinting right now. I don't understand it. He acts like I'm fresh out of undergrad or something."

Claire had to fight to stamp down her own sigh at her colleague's words. She couldn't blame Ivy as Topher treated the other woman like she was the Sorcerer's Apprentice and liable to start raising technological havoc at any moment. She nodded.

"Thanks," Ivy said to Claire before smiling widely at Victor and asking, "Do you want a treatment?"

"I want to be my best." Victor nodded, walking out of the room.

Stopping herself from cringing at his words, Claire followed them out of her office. Light New Age music played mingling with the sounds of the fountains and a delicate mix of aromatic soothing odors wafted in the Atrium. They walked up the stairs, the women's shoes clicking on the metal steps, and down the open hall.

"Want to know what he sent me out to get yesterday?" Ivy asked, falling into step beside her. "Deep fried pickle chips!" She shook her head throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Pickles cut up and deep fried."

"Hmmm, that's peculiar. Any reason why?" She eased up her grip on the test results and tucked them under her arm. It was easy being around Ivy, Claire thought, because was the only one who hadn't know her as Whiskey. It was easier to pretend she was Dr. Claire Saunders instead of a misfit toy. Ivy didn't give her subtle-yet-significant sideways glances like Topher. Before she learned of her Active state, Claire had though he was developing a creepy and grossly misguided crush on her.

"He's a snack food freak." She shrugged. "Its a southern thing. He read about it on a message board while I was dusting the wedges and had to have them immediately." Ivy folded her arms across her chest. "I refuse to believe that he is the smartest among us."

"This internship has been a humbling experience for you," Claire stated.

"Understatement. I went from Valedictorian to fried pickle fetcher." Ivy sighed before shrugging. "I'm sure this is building character."

"Its sad to see the mighty fall so far," Claire said dryly, smiling. It seemed like weeks since she had genuinely smiled. Her muscles felt strained after making the friendly gesture.

"Sierra fell on the track once and got a bubblegum. Her knee bleed so she needed a green band aid." Victor chimed as he opened the door to Topher's childish office. "Mr. Boyd will give you gum if you ask."

"Boyd is a nice man," Ivy said, differently from the way she spoke to Claire. Her tone soft and slightly childish as if she were speaking to a child or pet. "What kind of candy do you like?"

Claire couldn't help imagining herself in Victor's place as she must have been in the active state. She saw herself walking to the chair in the jewel-toned Yoga wear, her face untouched and expression unguarded, as she made polite doll talk. Topher would have been babbling at the imprinting chair's keyboard.

"Chocolate," Victor said.

She broke out of her reverie and went over to the brain map. This wasn't the time for an existential crisis, she told herself sternly. Ivy and Victor continued to talk in the background, but she tried to concentrate his brain projected on the 3D screen. She cursed her usual calm for deserting her as she tried to get herself back on the job instead in the past. Nothing jumped out at her as different from any of Victor's other scans. It seemed as if the trauma of being attacked by Alpha hadn't jostled the Tabula Rasa imprint, and the chemical levels were normal. He was perfectly fine. She could feel Victor's searching gaze on her back and couldn't help but take a quick glance at her fellow doll. It was a mistake; there were too many questions in his eyes. DeWitt and Topher saw the Actives as moon brained at best, but she knew better They observed and analyzed their surroundings even if they didn't understand. She hoped that his questions would tumble out after she retreated back to her office. Her senses seemed to grow more acute as she waited anxiously in silence.

Ivy slammed her fingers down on the keypad.

The fans for the computers' cooling systems whirled loudly competing with the Dollhouse's climate control.

Victor inhaled and opened his mouth.

Claire's heart sank.

"What's wrong with me?" He asked her, examining her face. "I feel my best, but I'm not anymore."

She stared at Victor as she gathered her wild rampaging thoughts. Her mind going back to the flash of Alpha's scalpel as he cut into him and then to his hurt and pitying face when she told him to go elsewhere for sympathy. Where was her usual bedside manner and decorum?

He looked down at himself, leaning over to peek at his feet, before turning his face back up to her with a quizzical expression.

"Nothing is wrong with you." She stifled the urge to rub her temples, but she knew this would be coming and almost wished they hadn't wiped his mind after the stitches came out. She had been dreading this question after bungling of the first time he had asked. Just the remembrance of her cruel projection made her feel like a beast. The truth was that whatever was wrong with Victor was the same with her. They were victims, betrayed by their biological personalities and assaulted by Alpha. Blameless. "It wasn't your fault." She turned away to avoid Ivy's concerned glances before saying quieter. "It wasn't any of our faults."

"You're completely healthy. Your face is scarred but you're still your best. Nothing could change that." Ivy patted Victor's shoulder.

"What is scarring?" Victor asked, feeling his face.

Claire couldn't pretend to study Victor's normal brain mapping any longer. She pointed to her face. "These are scars. We both were hurt by a horrible mistake, but we're still our best. Never forget that." To her surprise, her pep talk wasn't a lie. She knew deep in her bones that it was truth. Before she saw Alpha as karma for her work in high tech slavery, now she knew better. Dr. Saunders' might have been a part of the Dollhouse establishment, but Whiskey and whoever she was before were not. She was just a bystander caught in the crossfire.

"How is the map looking, Doc?" Ivy asked, gaze sympathetic,

"His brain is in optimal condition." Claire looked at a Teenage Mutant Ninja figurine propped up on a nearby screen then back at them, hands in her white coat. If only Topher hadn't imprinted her with so much stiff-upper-lip and emotional self consciousness, she thought.

The pensive expression on his face was gone like the sun breaking through the clouds. "Thank you."

"Time for your treatment." Ivy typed in the imprinting orders, eyes on her work. "He will be Chris Reynolds, a soldier. FYI."

The imprinting chair reclined to the neuro-scanner. Victor sat passively as the imprinting lights burned bright and searing. He whimpered as the artificial memories bum rushed his mind.

She forced herself to not flinch and watch until the end.

"Oh, hell's bells, I didn't mean to fall asleep on two beautiful ladies. How's the old coconut?" Victor-now-Chris stood up and stretched. Victor's passive civility and blandness was replaced by a lively expression and joking grin.

Ivy returned the grin before looking over to the brain on the 3D screen. "It looks copasectic to me, Sarge. Claire?"

She inspected the newly imprinted brain map. "Normal."

"Hey, don't I know you from the Green Zone?" Chris walked over to Claire, sparing the 3D screen a single impressed look. "Sorry, you're name probably got rattled out of my head in the bombing."

"Yeah, we met briefly a long time ago." It made her uncomfortable, but Dollhouse staff were trained to play along with the Active's imprinted personality so she nodded.

"I always know a fellow soldier." He winked then looked over the balcony to the Atrium and whistled. "This is quite the place. Much better than Walter Reed."

Selena, Victor's handler, strolled into the room, clad in a dark pantsuit with a thin black binder in her hand. "Mr. Reynolds, I have the mission dossier. If you would come with me."

"Thanks ya'll." He smiled before heading off with Selena.

"Does Topher need me to check anything else?" Claire asked, checking the digital Ren and Stimpy clock on Topher's shelf. "I haven't had lunch yet," she explained, hoping that it will be a good enough excuse to return to her hermitage of an office and gain control of herself.

"We don't need to waste your lunch hour." Ivy gestured flippantly and shook her head. "I can handle it; I only graduated Summa Cum Laude."

Claire smiled, and walked out of the office before resting her hand on the rail to look out over the Atrium. The Yoga, art, and reading areas were empty of Actives. A couple of instructors sat in conversation on couches by the pools. Victor-as-Chris's comment rang in her mind. She supposed it made sense as they were comrades of a sort and she had no doubt that, if the battle over the Imprinting technology hadn't already started, it would soon. Someone would have to tend to these people and fight for them when the time came. Breathing deep, she went down the stairs and spotted the bonsai room. A single potted tree was left out with the small clippers beside it on a table. The war was coming, she thought as she strode into the white gardening therapy room with her eyes on the tiny delicate branches, and she needed to be ready.

Who ever she was, she had to heal herself.


End file.
